[1] Most of the abbey buildings were subsequently demolished to construct a large private house on the site, which was itself destroyed in fighting during the 1648 siege of Colchester.

[1] The first attempt to populate the monastery came when the Bishop of Rochester sent two monks from his diocese to the town, but they subsequently returned and were replaced by a larger contingent under the leadership of a man called Ralph.

[3] The Church of St Giles was built to the north of the abbey on the early lay burial ground, which included many graves lined with Roman rubble.

[1] The abbey was embroiled in long standing disputes with the townspeople of Colchester throughout the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,[6] as well as several sometimes violent confrontations with the Augustinian convent of St Botolph's Priory which stood across the road from it.

[1] In 1253, following long standing dispute over access to the free warren in West Donyland, to the south of the town, and the extent of the abbot's jurisdiction, a group of forty Colchester men attacked and destroyed the abbey's gallows and tumbrels at Greenstead to the East of the town, before cutting the ropes of the abbey’s ships at Brightlingsea.

[6] By 1255 these particular disagreements were settled,[6] although in 1270 the king had to order the abbot to desist from distraining the Colchester men in matters of trespass of bread and ale, as it was outside of his jurisdiction.

The subsequent investigation, however, found that the body was of a criminal taken down from the town gallows and placed on the Green by the monks in an attempt to defame the burgesses of Colchester.

[1] The abbey found itself in trouble with the Crown in 1346, when a French prisoner, Berengar de Monte Alto, said to be the archdeacon of Paris, who had been captured at the Battle of Crécy by the English was sold in England for £50.

[5] In the winter of 1348-49 the Black Death struck the town, killing up to 1,500 people including the abbot and prior of St John's Abbey by the time it began to die down in August 1349.

[5] The cause of the riot is not stated, but it may have arisen through a dispute about a pension out of the church of St Peter's, in Colchester, which was settled the following year.

[6] The following year in 1392 the abbot and his supporters got into a fight with his own monks, which spilled over onto St John's Green outside of the abbey gate.

[6] In 1396, a monk of the abbey, John Colschestre was appointed bishop of Orkney by Pope Boniface IX,[5] who on 25 February 1399 also granted the abbots of Colchester the use of the mitre and permission to gives solemn blessings at the end of mass and vespers.

[5] However it was the abbot who had to pay arrears for failing alongside his predecessors of the last 130 years to find a chaplain to celebrate mass on three days in each week in St Helen's chapel in the town, something they should have done in accordance with a judgment of 1290.

[1] In the 1460s the abbey had close links with John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, Constable of Colchester Castle and a supporter of the Yorkist cause.

[1] Following the Plantagenet defeat at the Battle of Bosworth Field the abbey provided a sanctuary for Yorkists, including briefly Viscount Lovell and perhaps also Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.

[1] Following the Tudor victory in the Wars of the Roses King Henry VII appears to have viewed the abbey with suspicion, although he stayed there during his visit to Colchester.

[1] Abbot Beche had refused to hand the Abbey over to the king, and so was taken to the Tower of London before facing a trial in Colchester in front of a jury headed by the Earl of Essex.

[1] The church contained an image of The Blessed Virgin Mary, with a sanctuary lamp, and a relic consisting of a vial of Thomas Becket's blood.

[1] The abbey church and associated buildings, such as the abbot's residence and chapter house, were located within a walled precinct which enclosed an area of roughly 13 acres.

[1] The main entrance into the precinct from St John's Green was the Abbey Gate, which still stands and is a Grade I listed building.

Outside these on either side is a penthouse, on which is an angel holding out a shield of arms; on the left those of France and England quartered, and on the right those of the abbey.

[5] A charter from the reign of William II confirms the grants made by Eudo to the abbey, and mentions the manors of Brightlingsea, Weeley and Great Hallingbury, and the churches of Lillechurch, St Mary Woolchurch, and Leatherhead.

[5] The church of Lillechurch remained in the possession of the abbey until the reign of King Stephen, when it was exchanged for lands in East Donyland, to the south of Colchester.

[5] The chapel of St Helen at Colchester along with a fair of two days at the feast of the Invention of the Cross were granted to the abbey by Henry II.

[1] A small cell of the abbey was founded at Writtle called Bedemannesberg by a monk called Robert, and Henry II confirmed the abbey's possession and granted various privileges, including the right to gather nuts in the forest round, under the condition that two monks should dwell perpetually in the hermitage to pray for the safety of the king and the souls of dead kings.

[5] A third institution nominally owned by the abbey was St Mary Magdalene's Hospital on the road between the walled part of Colchester and its port.

[1] At the time of the dissolution the plate of the abbey amounted to 2,244¼ ounces besides two mytors garnished with silver and gilte, small seade perles and counterfeete stones or glasses, lackinge parte of the garnisshinge.